


Like Slow Spinning Redemption

by loverofthelight24



Series: I Promise, I'll Do Better [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate 5x11 scene, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drabble, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Stiles, Stiles would literally do anything for Lydia Martin, Stiles-centric, Theo is a Little Shit, lots and lots of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:16:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6183929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loverofthelight24/pseuds/loverofthelight24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nowadays, feeling ‘almost’ anything is a rarity, but Stiles almost feels vindicated. Almost feels normal. Almost as if bloodying Theo’s face was the objective for this whole meeting, even if he had gotten little to no valuable information from the chimera. Because according to what his mind had been screaming at him all along, it was for her.</p><p>For Lydia, always for Lydia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Slow Spinning Redemption

It was 10:33 A.M. on a Sunday, and Stiles Stilinski was sure he had never hated Theo Raeken more than he did right now.

Sitting on the staircase of the McCall’s house, Stiles begrudgingly decided to meet up with the chimera to “clarify” (Stiles wished he was tearing his throat out instead, but he’ll have to deal with it) what was happening in Beacon Hills and how much Theo had/has a hand in it. Stiles wanted this conversation to be as quick and concise as humanly possible, but Theo was making it excruciatingly difficult for it to happen so.

With his beady, hawk-like eyes, an egomaniacal smirk, and the fact that his jaw seemed to tighten in pride every time Stiles listed off the things Theo had tried to take from him (the trust of his “dead” best friend, who was listening in from the top of the staircase and his comatose father, the only parent he had left), Stiles was coming closer and closer to losing his civil facade. But he managed to hold this in; clenching his fists instead of using them to pummel Theo’s infuriating face, biting his bottom lip so the endless line of profanities he thought towards him would remain silent, and mimicking an indifferent stare to the chimera in front of him rather than the hateful, black glare he felt tugging at the corners of his worn brown eyes.

Stiles managed to do this all, that is, until Theo brought her up.

They were shooting question and answers rapidly back and forth, until it came onto the topic of Parrish and that it was ultimately discovered that he was a hellhound of sorts.

“Lydia figured it out,” Theo explained, too rationally and calmly for Stiles’ taste. “I saw it in her memories.”

“Right after you drove her out of her mind,” Stiles shot back without hesitation, the mask of indifference fading at each mention of Lydia.

Theo paused for a moment, seemingly contemplating Stiles’ biting response. The fire the human held for the banshee was scorching, blazing, and remarkable. It was especially easy to see with the supernatural powers Theo possessed, and he wanted, no; needed, to make sure he had the upper hand. The longer Stiles held his indifferent and cool demeanor, the longer and more permanent his control remained. But if he kept making reference to Lydia, he was more than positive Stiles would break.

_(“If you want to cause Stilinski devastating, soul crushing, emotional pain, you don’t go after him. You go after someone he loves.”)_

So he did.

With a purposeful tilt to the head and quick swipe of the tongue against his amused smirk, Theo replied: “Collateral damage.”

As he figured, Stiles fists unclenched and began to tap against his thigh like an irregular heartbeat, while his eyebrows creased downwards into now dark, hatred ridden eyes. With nostrils flared and hands shakily retracting from an open to closed position, Theo knew he had already won. Additionally, the fury he felt radiating from Stiles was also coming from the top of the stairs. Emotions, especially ones rooted in sadness and anger, are visceral. While the scent upstairs wasn’t as pungent as Stiles’, it still rotted from the same hints of thick smoke and iron. _Scott._

Theo could’ve made this simpler. He could be been satisfied with his win by giving the two teenagers a nice, sportsmanlike pat on the back and an elementary-style “A for effort” sticker for attempting to pry information out of him, and walked out of this tension-filled house right now. But his craving for pushing the line further and agitating the human was intense, so he stayed.

And he spoke.

“Not sure if you’ve heard; I mean, anything relating to Lydia in the past year has seemed to fly over your head, since you have been spending so much time with the werecoyote….”

At this, Stiles’ position had instinctively shifted into one closer to Theo, his breath heaving as he tried to lock his head to the side and direct his eye contact elsewhere, as if he would be able to deflect the chimera’s words by this. But by the ever present amount of veins pulsing in his neck and the tense appearance of his jaw, Theo knew he had more than pissed off Stiles. He had enraged him. It fueled his craving even more.

“-But now Lydia is well on her way to being committed to Beacon Hills’ infamous loony bin- Eichen House, if I’m not mistaken. You’re familiar with that place, aren’t you Stiles?”

“Wherever you’re going with this, I strongly suggest you stop and shut the fuck up,” Stiles bit back, the control of his voice unraveling with every word he spoke.

_Perfect._

“So you are? _Wow!_ That was just an educated guess by the way you’re shaking in your place right now,” Theo said, smiling and baring his teeth in doing so.

Almost robotically, Stiles took one glance at his red, splotchy hands and ceased their tremors. Stiles looked up at Theo in a way that would almost fool someone else as being calm, except for the fact that his eyes still held the same, if not greater, amount of disdain for the chimera. And the fact that his fingers were displaying a very specific number:

**5.**

“I spend a lot of free time at Eichen House, Stiles. So I have no doubt that I will be seeing Lydia once, twice, probably more-“

**4.**

“You won’t be going anywhere near her,” Stiles retorted bitterly. “I can promise you that.”

“Oh, except I will,” Theo said, glancing over his bloodied fingernails in a sickeningly appreciative manner; Lydia’s blood that he drew from her neck.

Stiles, being the overly observant human he was, noticed this. He started to tremble again, and his fingers went down one more.

**3.**

“You see Stiles, when I told you that I came here for the pack, I may have fibbed a tad,” he said, his voice rising in pitch at the last word.

“I mainly came for your banshee. Lydia is a great asset to me, supernaturally or not. And with the lack of human contact, frequent lobotomy, and brainwashing, she’ll be feeling especially lonely. I mean, she is rather _experienced_ after all-“

“Don’t you even dare talk about her like that, I swear to god-“

**2.**

Theo dropped his gaze from his nails to see that Stiles had taken more than one step towards him, so much so that he could feel the heat from his rage beat against his chest wildly.

_This is all too easy._

“Or what? You’ll come in on a great white horse and save her from the place that drove you out of your mind first?” Theo roared, daringly taking another step towards the human that he could now feel his hot breath on his face.

“Even with the Nogitsune spirit in you, you were still a human, Stiles; a weak, insignificant one at that. And you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to save her, because that’s all you are.”

**1.**

In all his life here on earth, Theo Raeken was sure he had never been able to visibly detect such explicable hatred towards him as he felt from Stiles right now. He knew the human was merely seconds away from throwing his fist towards his face, but he was willing to test it. He was willing to try anything to give him control, no matter the situation. So he leaned forward towards his ear, and whispered a sentence he knew that would be the closest to driving Stiles certifiably insane once again.

“She’ll be so damn lonely, and trust me; I’ll be impatiently waiting to see what her pretty little mouth can do besides scream.”

**0.**

He’s thrown against the door with such inhuman force that he first thinks it’s Scott, but then he finds manic whiskey eyes boring holes into his own, fists grasping him by the collar of his shirt, and a mouth twitching like a rabid animal and knows it’s Stiles, and that he successfully severed whatever red thread was holding the human together. 

“You fucking-“ a punch to his ribs. “-piece of-“ a fist to the throat. “-shit!”

Surprising both him and Stiles, Stiles hurls his fist just under Theo’s nose, the force and sharpness of his pale knuckles causing Theo slam his head against the door’s window. Immediately, the solid glass pane bursts into herds of shards that threaten to dig themselves into his already bloody scalp. Many of them do, but the rest either plunge to the floor below or onto Stiles’ pallid complexion, the crimson marking his cheeks like war paint. Stiles doesn’t care. This is a war, and he will be damned if he lets the catastrophic mistake of human existence known as Theo Raeken win.

His mind is racing, thoughts colliding into each other and exploding into a blind, white rage as he continues to hit Theo and sets his sights on making sure the inhumane light in his eyes is put out for good. Before he can succeed, Scott’s arms suddenly lock around his waist and feverishly attempt to pull him away from pummeling Theo’s face. Panicking, Stiles latches his jagged fingernails onto the sides of Theo’s face, pulling him back with him as the chimera screams in utter agony, his nails digging deeper and deeper into his flesh.

And the worst thing about it is that it feels so _right._ Like the world has never been more in balance than right now, with his fingernails submerged and twisting under Theo’s skin and the sounds of blunt and absolute pain that emit from his mouth when he does so. Stiles had killed before; a few months ago in fact. It was self-defense, and he barely knew Donovan but he still found himself screaming into his sweat-drenched pillow at 2 A.M., heaving from the insuperable guilt that wracked his body. It had become an identity for Stiles, feeling whispers of the words “killer” and “evil” taint his bloodstream every time he so much as passed the library on his way to AP Chemistry. And if he’s getting technical, he’s killed two people in total. (Stiles doesn’t care what Scott and Lydia say; he knows Allison’s blood coats his hands just as much as Donovan’s do.)

But still, it should’ve scared him that he would kill for someone. Someone that wasn’t his dad, Scott, or his dead mother.

Someone who he saw carving algebraic equations in the sandbox, green eyes gleaming with pride while he hung upside down from the monkey bars one day in third grade recess.

Someone who had no idea who he _really_ was until post-supernatural.

Someone he had no idea who they _really_ were until they let their archaic walls crumble for the first time in front of him, with strawberry-blonde hair pulled into an unceremonious bun and high heels carelessly and comfortably chucked in the corner of his room as they rattled off theories that no one else in the pack would understand other than each other.

Someone who he had ignored for the better half of a year to escape demons that resided in the confines of his mind instead of in the woods of Beacon Hills, even when they had given him tight-lipped smiles and all-too-rehearsed _"it's fine, Stiles"_ lines when he ditched the plans above for the werecoyote for the umpteenth time. 

Someone he had loved, and let down. And loved and let down and loved and let down. 

Someone else named Lydia Martin.

“Let go of me, Scott! I need to do this!”

“Stiles, let _go!”_

Stiles almost busts out laughing at the irony, because he let go of any sanity or moral compass he had a long time ago before he was swallowed into the sweltering darkness of Beacon Hills. If there’s anything he has done right, it’s that he has completely and totally let go of himself. But because of this, he had simultaneously and unconsciously let go of his best friend. Of his dad. Of his ex (?) girlfriend. Of Lydia.

This time though, he literally lets go.

As he falls back onto Scott and Theo scurries out of the house (his face unfortunately still intact), another phrase besides “killer” pulses throughout his body for the first time in over a year. Even when Scott is screaming at him with arms flailing and eyes literally seeing red, the words coursing throughout his entirety are deafening, only now he feels almost nowhere near the guilt he carried ever since Allison’s heart stopped beating. Nowadays, feeling ‘almost’ anything is a rarity, but he _almost_ feels vindicated.

 _Almost_ feels normal.

 _Almost_ as if bloodying Theo’s face was the objective for this whole meeting, even if he had gotten little to no valuable information from the chimera. Because according to what his mind had been screaming at him all along, it was for her.

_For Lydia; always for Lydia._

**Author's Note:**

> So this is super surprising since I have been in the TW/Stydia fandom since the start of the show and haven't written a fic about these two yet until now. This is my legit OTP, and I tried to make it angsty as hell on Stiles' end/delve a bit into his newfound dark and twisty psyche while still writing a Stydia piece, so I hoped I accomplished that for my first fic. Thank you guys for reading! I'll be posting more fics too, and kudos and/or comments are greatly appreciated if you enjoyed it :-)
> 
> Title is from "Vindicated" by Dashboard Confessional. Find me on Tumblr @stilesprefers-screamers and Twitter @loveroflight24 for fic updates, everything Stydia/TW related and hella more!


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